Symbiosis
by Angel Commando
Summary: She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was trying to gain honor and prestige. But life had other plans. Now, bound together, they must survive as a single unit. Easier said than done, considering that she's human and he's an alien. Oh, and there's the small matter of government experimentation. . .
1. Prologue: Small Voices

**Symbiosis **

**Rating: **T - M (Rating my increase in later chapters).

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this, but I so wish I did. The Yautja are probably the coolest alien species I've run into.

**Summary**:She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was trying to gain honor and prestige. But life had other plans. Now, bound together, they must survive as a single unit. Easier said that done, considering that she's human and he's an alien. Oh, and there's the small matter of government experimentation. . .

**Warnings: **None, really. A small spattering of some language, and a small amount of disturbing images/ a little bit of gore.

**Author's Notes: **Hello, and welcome to this. . . Well, I don't really know what the hell it is, really. It's a fanfiction, but I don't really know where it's going. I don't have an end for it. But let's get through this first arc together, and when that happens, we'll probably figure it out! But anyway. I was inspired after reading a few fics on this site, and I thought, hey, I might as well bring my own fic to the table.

Updates will be slow, anticipate that. But I hope I'll bring something new to the whole "girl gets tangled up with the Yautja." Also, summary subject to change.

And hey, a little government experimentation never hurt, right? Let's get onto the prologue!

**I am so sorry. One of my other files bled into this one. I fixed it! **

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><p>"When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see the real you, or what you have been conditioned to believe is you? The two are so, so different."<br>-David Icke

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><p>Drugs, she mused, were really fucking trippy.<p>

Her head lolled to the side, the room leaving fuzzy trails as her eyes lazily tracked from one side of it to the other. It was hard to focus on much, but she tried. She knew that so long as she tried to concentrate on one thing, she was able to achieve it. . . usually. It kind of depended on how much crap they decided to shove into her veins that day. . . That day. Her thoughts stopped there, hitting against a mental barrier as they tried to tumble over themselves.

_Just how long have I been here, anyway?_

In the back of her mind, a voice tried to respond, growling in anger, but she tuned it out. She didn't want an answer. . . She was scared to know it. She'd lost count a long, long time ago - but had she ever really kept track, though? It was so hard to tell when it was night, and when it was day. . . All she knew was that she slept, or she was awake. She had two modes of existence: on and off.

A rustle sounded, piquing her interest, and she turned her head, fighting against heavy lead weights that tried to make her chin drop onto her chest. It was a very enticing option, though, and it took nearly everything she had in her to resist it. It would be utterly amazing to fall asleep, though. To just let her head fall down, allow her eyes to shut, to drift off. . . She found her strength slipping away, and her head started to dip, her chin coming into contact with her chest. Inwardly, she screamed, battling it, trying to ward off sleep, but it was quickly becoming a futile effort.

Discordant bits of sound ran through her mind, and rapid-fire images assaulted her, reminding her of times and places _before_, of a life without florescent lights and the overwhelming smell of sterile bleach. . .

The rustle sounded again, somehow giving her the strength to open her eyes again. She remembered now - she had something to do. She had to focus on something. . . The sound! Yes, the sound. It was her objective, she remembered. _God, they must be laying it on me pretty thick today. . . I almost fell asleep_. Normally she lasted a minute or five, not just a few seconds. The sound continued, but she identified it as papers shuffling together.

Through a monumental effort, she finally managed to lift her head. For a long moment, she tried to place exactly what she was looking at, but she was having difficulty doing it. The shapes kept blurring together, forming amorphous masses. But by concentrating, and staring, eventually, the picture began to clear. And she jumped (albeit very, very sluggishly), as a strangled, half-dead mewl floated into the air around her, startling her.

. . . And she felt a lance of anguish spear through her as she realized that the noise was coming from _her_.

And it was very easy to see why.

She looked like a science experiment come to life. Half of her head had been shaved clean, with wires and ports sticking out of angry, red skin. More tubes stuck into her skin, covering every available inch of skin. The rest of her looked like a walking, diseased skeleton. Her skin was pulled tight over her bones, and horrible, ugly bruises spanned her complexion, making her look like a damn leper. Her naked body had only been covered by a hospital gown that tied in the back, but it rode up her thighs, revealing more skin than she would have ever liked to show. In another time, another life, she supposed she might have felt a measure of immodesty. As it were, she could only manage to drop her eyes, avoiding her reflection. So long as she didn't see herself, then she couldn't feel bad about it. . . right?

"_Good, you're awake._" A voice said.

She knew it. It belonged to a man, a man that had questioned her relentlessly over her time there. She was wary of this voice, for it had pried and picked her brain apart until it had been nothing. And then he pressed on, picking _her_ apart until nothing remained.

Against her will, she lifted her eyes up again, looking at her reflection. Lank, brown hair hung down her left shoulder, looking dead and limp. She frowned. There had been a time, she was certain, that it had been glossy, when it had caught the sun and bounced. She frowned, trying to look past the mirror, to the other side of the glass, where the man waited, she was positive of it.

"_Did you sleep well?_"

The voice in the back of her head snarled, tired of being ignored, but she continued to push it aside, not wanting to acknowledge it. She didn't want to think about the voice. In any case, the question was rhetorical. He asked her that every time. Instead of answering, she looked over the features of the room - and found none. It was a blank, white room. Florescent lighting buzzed overhead, beginning to irritate her.

"_Anyway, let's move on. How are you feeling?_"

It wasn't a question of sincerity. It was a scientific one.

It had been a hard, hard lesson, but she'd found out that as a person, they really didn't give a rat's ass about her.

"M' tired." She mumbled. It was much easier to be honest than it was to lie. She'd also learned that earlier. Lying caused a great deal of pain. Telling the truth was met with less pain.

"_Yes, I can see that. Well, don't worry. We'll keep our conversation short today. You'll be sleeping again soon._"

_That's good. Sleep sounds good._

"We only have three questions for you today. Three very simple questions. Are you ready?_"_

Silence.

Oh, they were expecting an answer.

"Okay." She said warily, forcing her sluggish tongue to cooperate. The drugs racing through her system were wicked that day, apparently. Normally, she was sure she wasn't this slow.

"_Good. Question one. . . do you remember your name?_"

She looked at herself in the mirror, and she caught her breath. In the reflective surface, she looked. . . she looked terrified. Her eyes were a little wide, too wide, and her mouth was open, breathing in air in shallow, short little pants. She closed it, trying to force herself to calm down, but it didn't work.

"My. . . My name?" She rasped, staring at her reflection.

"_Yes. Your name. The designation you were given at birth. Do you remember it?_"

"I. . . I can't-" She stuttered, her tongue unwilling to form the words.

What was her name? What was that thing that people had called her? She could remember friends and family, turning to her, speaking to her, calling her _something_. It was important that she remember it, she knew. But the drugs were just. . . shit, she couldn't think. She couldn't remember anything past the last ten minutes. In the back of her mind, the voice stirred, offering up a quiet answer.

It didn't feel right, it wasn't her, but it was all she had.

"R. . Rhet. Ree-jeet. . . My name is. . . Is Riejet."

"_Close._" The man said, "_Try again._"

The voice barked at her, snapping out the word like the crack of a whip, and she understood.

"Rjet." She answered, proud to have remembered.

There was a beat of silence, and the voice neither praised nor berated her. Finally, however, it responded.

"_Can you not remember your name?_"

_But I. . . But I just said. . ._

"It's Rjet." She said. "It's got to be. . ."

A stinging wetness burned her eyes as tears built there, threatening to fall.

_"No reason to get upset. Can you not remember your name?_"

She gave the tiniest shake of her head, all she could manage. "R-Rjet." She murmured.

"_Another time. I'm sure you'll remember it another time. Let's move onto the next question, then. Do you remember what happened to you_?"

At that, the voice was silent. For a moment, however, the room flashed, and she smelled the earthy, pleasant aroma of dirt, felt a biting cold in her skin, and got the vision of something black, glistening in the dark. . . But that was it.

"No." She said. The images and scents were gone as quickly as they'd come, much to her unexpected relief.

"_I see. . . Now, last question. Have you been talking_?"

Her heart leaped up into her throat, and she struggled, shaking her head. She knew better than to try to act out, to disobey the voices. It meant pain. Endless amounts of pain, agony, and blood, but she didn't want to answer this question. She felt her stomach drop as the seconds ticked on, and she hiccuped, shifting, fear and adrenaline racing through her veins. She didn't want to say the answer.

"Please," She begged, tears sliding down her cheeks, "Please, don't. . ."

"_So you haven't_." There was no anger or disappointment in his tone, and that made her still in horror.

"Please," She tried again, "Please, I swear, stop, don't-"

"_We expected so much more of you_," The voice continued, ignoring her teary appeals, "_So much more_."

She knew what that meant. Above the buzz of the lights, she began to hear another kind of humming noise, one that made her blood freeze in her veins. She cried, even though she knew it was useless, and she tried to thrash in her restraints, attempting to break free, but that was unsuccessful. And finally, as the humming grew louder, she slumped over and gave in completely, sobbing, her chest heaving.

When the electricity hit her, it took her by surprise, as it had millions of times before.

Her back arched, and all of her muscles contracted at once, seizing painfully under her skin. And then she was lost to torture, her mind detaching from her body, as it had, thousands of times before. She'd lost track of exactly how many instances they had shocked her, sending volts of electricity into her veins, making her convulse. The shock seemed to last for an eternity as she suffered, but then it ended, and she slumped over, head lolling forward.

As unconsciousness began to engulf her in slow, lazy spirals, she felt. . . She felt something.

A small, tiny dot of resistance. Thought it was tiny, it glared with a core of tenacity so bright, she couldn't help but be affected by it. She blindly latched onto it, absorbing what she could, and from what she could siphon, she had enough strength to feel defiant, to glare absolute _murder _at the mirror, at the men in white coats who were probably staring at her. She thought of reaching through the glass, shattering it, taking the shards and digging them into tender skin, of reaching in and tearing out the question-asker's tongue with her bare hands, of ripping hearts out of chests with her bare hands.

"Fuck you." She seethed.

Somewhere, in the back of her head, she heard a dark, barking laugh. A glow of agreement prickled over her skin, and other images settled into her vision. She could see her hands, digging into a spine, and viciously tearing it out with her bare hands, blood and gore dripping from her black talons.

_Pauk de._

For a moment, silence reigned. But then the speakers crackled to life, and she swore she heard him smiling.

"_Very good. Very, very good_."

And with that, her head dropped onto her chest, and reality faded.


	2. The Room

**Symbiosis **

**Rating: **T - M (Rating my increase in later chapters).

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this, but I so wish I did. The Yautja are probably the coolest alien species I've run into.

**Summary**:She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was trying to gain honor and prestige. But life had other plans. Now, bound together, they must survive as a single unit. Easier said that done, considering that she's human and he's an alien. Oh, and there's the small matter of government experimentation. . .

**Warnings: **Teensy bit of language.

**Author's Notes: **Whattup. It's Halloween, I have a ton of homework to do, and I don't wanna do it. So I decided to write another chapter of this instead. Forgive me for the choppiness of it - I really want to get over this hurdle to get to the good stuff. But this one I think sets the tone really nicely for why certain key players are where they are. But I digress.

I hope y'all are doin' good. I was sick as a dog, but just got over it. Instead of doing anything this Halloweenie, I'm eating my weight in junk food and watching scary movies. Though to be honest, I'm going to go to bed soon and crash, because I'm exhausted and I have homework and work tomorrow. Ugh. Anyway, here you go!

**JFC. **

**It did it again. Proof that I actually DID change it: the quote. Fanfiction is out to get me. **

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><p>"Of all the things you choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you."<br>-John Irving

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><p><em>Waking up sucks.<em>

Riley groaned as she slowly came to.

The fluorescent lights above her buzzed happily, welcoming her return to reality, and were more than happy to stab their rays of light down into her eyes. Hissing in pain, Riley's eyes watered as she somehow scraped together what little strength she had to roll over. Pillowing her head on her arms, she created a little shadowed alcove for her poor eyes to adjust. Breathing in slowly, the teen tried to contain the roiling of her stomach, which threatened to make her vomit if she dared move any more. Suppressing a pitiful whine, Riley closed her eyes and concentrated on jut becoming awake.

The seconds bled into minutes, and she was absolutely positive the minutes turned into hours, but eventually, the nausea subsided. Feeling slightly better, Riley finally allowed more and more light into her little shadowed den, and when her eyes were finally ready, she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

The Room was there, waiting for her, as it had been hundreds of times before.

She was laying in the middle of the floor, as was custom, and there, right to the left, was a little cot for her to lay on. No blankets, no pillows - just a cot. She had a sneaking suspicion it was metal just covered with a piece of plastic-like cloth, as it was the most uncomfortable thing she'd ever laid on, but it was better than the floor. She didn't know why they always deposited her in the middle of the room, on the floor. . . but if she had to guess, it had to do with her nightmares.

She had a metric fuckton of them, and she was always fighting, always tossing and turning. . . . Either that, or they just didn't give a shit. Floor, metal cot with a covering - what was the difference?

Riley couldn't feel her legs, and when she tried to support her weight, they wobbled like pieces of rubber, so she gave up on using them altogether. Uncaring of how undignified it made her look, Riley used her hands to crawl across the floor and to the cot. She felt exhausted when she reached it, but was grateful when she finally flopped onto it. Breathing harshly, her heart pounding in her ears, she tried to blink away the fog covering her vision.

How many times had she woken up in the Room? A hundred? A thousand? A million?

Too many for her to count. Dejected, Riley cast a glance over the Room, but it was the same as it always had been. A clear, plastic door with holes - not that being able to see through the door made much of a difference. When they wanted to drag her anywhere, the men in white coats just gassed her cell and waited for her to pass out. Since the sleeping agent they used was colorless and only faintly tasted of too-sweet sugar, it wasn't until she started getting drowsy did she realize that she was being drugged.

And by then, it was too late to feel panicked and scared.

Smiling wryly to herself, Riley laid down, staring off into space, where the wall across from her was just _so _interesting. In her time in the Room, she'd examined every nook, cranny, and detail - there was no way in, no way out. . . except for the door. The vents they used to pump gas into her cell were circular nozzles embedded into the ceiling - even if she pried the cover off, it was only big enough to cram half of her hand into. The only exit was the door, which was locked, and barricaded by at _least _two to three more, she was certain.

So, Riley had set to slowly dying in the Room, her soul whittling away piece by piece.

But. . . But what else could she do? At first, in the very, _very _beginning, she'd fought. She battled against the soldiers and white coats that came into her room, that tried to take her away, shove needles into her veins, strapped gas masks over her face. . . but they'd always won. And after the twentieth or fiftieth time (she'd honestly lost count), she'd given up. The pain just wasn't worth it. If she went with them willingly, they weren't as harsh with her. Hell, sometimes, she was even _allowed _to walk to her next confinement space, though if Riley was thinking right, it was really only to test whether or not the drugs they'd given her were working properly.

Sighing, Riley curled in on herself, and battled a wave of fatigue.

Once upon a time, there had been more, beyond the Room. She was absolutely sure of it. But it was getting harder to remember those days where life had been normal. Maybe it was the Room, slowly bleaching away her past to the searing, hated white that was constantly surrounding her. An itch started on the side of her head, and Riley gently brought a hand up to rub at the tender skin there. Despite her tiredness, she was excruciatingly careful not to pull any of the wires or tubes that stuck into her skull.

It still surprised her, as it had so many times before, but Riley bit her bottom lip to keep it from shaking. Once, she'd had a full head of hair. Brown, she remembered, and no matter what country she was in, she always splurged, always found money to locate dry shampoo of some kind, just to keep it clean. It was impossible to have running water in third world countries sometimes, so dry shampoo and baby wipes had been her best friend.

_Oh. . . I think I'm starting to remember now._

Riley dropped her hand and closed her eyes as sleep began to claw its way through her, and memories flashed over her vision. But even though it started, as it had so many times before, Riley felt a sense of dread beginning to thread its way through her heart. The flashes began to become more and more coherent, and she could hear screaming, see blood flashing across her vision, feel the burn of molten lava across her skin. . .

The dreams were only the beginning.

_I don't want the nightmares again. . ._

But the dreams started, as they had so many times before, at the beginning. . .

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><p>Riley felt groggy as she stood, trying her absolute best to stay awake. She'd slept. . . Well, actually, she wasn't sure how much she'd slept, but she was sure she'd <em>over<em>slept, meaning that she'd feel gross for the rest of the day, and likely into a good portion of tomorrow. In any case, she mused, she was really happy she was getting up and about. Sitting for hours and hours in an airplane was not her most favorite activity in the world, and she was dying to get out and stretch her legs.

Or unroll her bedding and just take a nap on the tarmac, either way.

Disembarking, Riley grimaced and frowned as she forfeited air conditioning for a wall of hot and humid air that smacked her in the face. It did little to improve her mood, and really just made her more sleepy. Half-awake, the eighteen-year-old shuffled with the masses onto the tarmac, and into the airport. She stood in a daze as she passed through entry visas (which, for a tiny, third-world country, was remarkably fast) quite quickly. She headed for the baggage claim and stood there, eyes half-lidded, and she dozed.

Maybe her bags had already gone around once or twice, but when she opened her eyes again, there were fewer people around the baggage carousel, and her bags were actually rounding the corner. Blinking herself awake, Riley leaned forward and grabbed them, sluggishly making her way over to customs. Halfway between napping and just absently shuffling, Riley made it through customs in the blink of an eye, and then came out the other side of the airport.

It was the middle of the day, not quite at its peak of hotness, but it just made Riley want to find a chest full of ice and lay in it all the same.

Los Angeles didn't have anything on this heat.

Riley dropped her suitcase on the ground, and uncaring of how it made her look, sat down on it. At least she'd been smart enough to avoid wearing pants - short shorts, and a t-shirt, cultural respects be damned. For a little while, Riley just sat there, watching as the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. Nepalese people bustled about her, hardly even giving her a second glance as she sat on her suitcase, blearily staring into space.

_Nepal is pretty_, Riley decided.

Nepalese people were all smiles and friendliness. Riley supported her chin on her hand and smiled idly to herself, glad to have something to distract her.

"Escuse." A voice said to her left, catching her attention, "Ar yew. . . Rileh?"

Riley perked up, and craned her neck back. A young teen - probably no more than fifteen - looked back at her. He had all the traits of a Nepalese man - almond shaped-eyes, their color a beautiful brown, short-cropped black hair, and olive skin. He was dressed slightly better than his fellow countrymen, but even his shirt and pants had holes and tears. Riley sat there, staring at him for a moment, before she rose to her feet and stuck out her hand.

"Namaste." She said.

It wasn't perfect, but she had a few solid months to pick up on some Nepalese. Besides, other languages were more her forte. The boy looked taken aback for a moment, but then smiled and stuck his hand out in response.

"Namaste." He replied, grabbing her hand tightly. "I am Suraj."

(_"Suraj! Suraj, no! Please, god, no, Suraj, don't let go of my hand! Hold it tighter! Don't let go!_")

Riley grinned, and released his hand. "You're going to drive me to my dad?"

Suraj nodded. "Yes. I am. . . Take of the hills."

So, his English wasn't perfect, but she could understand him just fine. Suraj picked up her suitcase before she could turn him down, and took the lead, walking her to the truck. Riley trailed along beside him, taking in Kathmandu. She knew it was going to be one hell of a ride back and forth from town, so she'd probably have to stop at a local store and pick up some goodies before she got too lost in the mountains.

Suraj led her to a rickety truck that most definitely was not street legal, but at least it had a metal frame, and that was all Riley needed. And hell, the drivers in Nepal were probably more kind and considerate than those in LA. It was just _getting _to where you wanted to go that was the problem. From what she'd researched, and what her father had told her, Nepal roads were lacking considerably compared to the States. But she'd get used to it. . . she hoped.

"So. . . yew coming frum Amerka?"

Riley couldn't help it - she giggled. Suraj smiled, looking a tiny bit embarrassed, but Riley waved a hand. "I'm sorry, I'm tired. Very tired. Yes. I'm coming from America. You are from Nepal?"

Suraj started the truck, which wheezed, sick and diseased, but it eventually turned over and dropped into gear. With expertise that Riley knew she'd never had, the teen began to manuver his way onto the busy streets of Kathmandu.

"I heared. . . Amerka was good place. Good place."

"Depends, but yes, I like living there. Suraj, can we stop by a market? A store?"

"Oh, yes. Yes. I take. I one day want go to Amerka."

"America. Auh-mer-i-ka."

"Auhmeerika."

"We'll work on that."

A few hours later, Riley had purchased half of the store's inventory, and most of it was littering the truck's cab and half of its bed. A girl could never be too prepared for a six-month stint in Nepal. She'd also bought her and Suraj something to nibble on for the truck ride over - which would be another whopping 4 hours. Beside her, her newly-dubbed friend was eating away at some kind of junk food that came out of a bag. Riley, however, was more than happy to save the munchies for when she as actually hungry.

She laid her head on her backpack, which helped create a soft buffer for her head. Suraj was more than happy to ask her a multitude of questions about America, and in her sleep, Riley answered them. As far as she could recall, however, most of her conversation was correcting Suraj's speech, which he adamantly insisted upon and committed to memory. Riley figured she had plenty of time to get to know the kid and ask to practice her Nepalese, so she was content to just sit in the truck and nap.

Finally, however, the wheezing of the truck stopped, and Suraj killed the engine.

"We are here." The teen said, carefully and proudly saying every word.

Riley blinked her eyes and scrubbed at her face, staring at the small camp. They were situated about 5,000 feet into the Himalayas, not too far away from Mt. Everest, but man, was the temperature different. It almost felt _cold_. Impressive what a few thousand feet could do. Grogginess wearing off, and excitement replacing it, Riley hopped out of the truck, saying she'd be back for her junk later, and eagerly scanned the people milling around.

She saw a few Sherpas, more Nepalese, a few foreigners, and. . .

"Dad!" She squealed.

Her father stopped what she was doing, bent over a map, and his face lit up. "Riley! I was wondering when you'd show up! C'mere, baby girl."

Riley's cheeks hurt from smiling as she dashed forward and wrapped her father up in a tight hug, almost knocking him down. "Daddy, I missed you so much! It's been three months!"

Her father laughed, hitting her back in reassurance as he pulled away from her. "Three months well spent, I assure you, my daughter. Just _wait _until you see what we've discovered. Baby girl, you're gonna _love _this."

Riley dropped her arms-

(_"Suraj, where's my dad? He just. . . He was there. I saw it. Right there. Suraj, he was _there_. Dad! Daddy! _Daddy!")

-and smiled. "It better be. I was in the middle of my Russian studies, you know."

"With the rate you pick up languages, kiddo, I wouldn't be surprised if you knew Russian by the end of the week. Think of it this way: you get to learn Nepalese now. But here, here, c'mere. Let me show you."

Riley followed her father over to a small workbench he'd been bending over, and with an excited flourish, gestured her to look at a stack of photographs. Fatigue and jet lag momentarily forgotten, Riley scrubbed at her eyes and tried to figure out what she was looking at. And what she saw utterly confused her. To put it very simply: it was a door. But it was a door unlike she had ever seen before. There were markings that certainly didn't come from any language she'd seen, and growing up with Henry Landon, archeologist and ancient culture extraordinaire, had meant she'd run into her fair share of them.

"Dad, what is this?" She asked.

"That's why I brought you here." Her father continued, "I've never seen anything like it before in my life. And hey, I figured, if it's new to me, my baby girl might want to see it too."

"It's. . . It's different." Riley hedged.

(_If I'd ever known what was on the other side of that door, I never would have come. I would have run to the other side of the planet and nuked it. Why? Why did it have to happen like this? This was all my fault. . . _)

In terms of construction, the door was nothing like what she'd ever seen. The rock looked indigenous to the area, but there were runes and shapes she'd never encountered imprinted into it, almost as if the rock had been cut with some kind of laser. The more Riley stared at it, the more it hurt her brain.

"And that's why I called you here!" Her father said in a rush, bending over the picture, a spark in his eyes, "We've been given the go-ahead by the dig's benefactor to open the door. We'll be cracking that baby in about a week."

"So soon?"

Her father straightened from the photographs, passion in his expression.

"Just you wait, Riley. You'll see. This is _it_!"

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><p>Riley forced herself to wake up.<p>

The world came back to her in dizzying spirals, and she breathed harshly as she came to.

"No." She said, her voice rasping in the air, "No, I don't want to see this. I don't want to dream it anymore. _Stop_."

Every time she closed her eyes, it was the same thing, day in, day out. Dream. Play through the nightmares. Wind up in the Room. Dream. . . Rinse and repeat. She was fairly certain it was chipping at her sanity, and at this point, she was ready for an out. If there was a spare razor or a piece of metal laying around, she'd happily end the cycle of vicious torture. Riley screwed her eyes shut and pressed the palms of her hands against them. She was tired of crying. She was tired of reacting like _this_. . .

But fuck, if she dreamed it _one more time_, she was fairly certain she was going to go insane.

Remembering her father's smile made her eyes burn and water, and before she knew it, she was crying, quietly sobbing as she rocked back and forth.

"Daddy. . ." She whispered, guilt ripping through her.

And through her pain, through her torture, a single, tiny shred of a word floated through her brain:

_dtai'kai'-dte_

She knew what it meant. It was said to her every time she woke up.

Fight.

Riley cried, knowing that her torment was only just beginning.

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><p><em>Namaste <em>is the Nepalese way of saying hello and goodbye.


	3. First Blood

**Symbiosis **

**Rating: **T - M (Rating my increase in later chapters).

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this, but I so wish I did. The Yautja are probably the coolest alien species I've run into.

**Summary**:She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was trying to gain honor and prestige. But life had other plans. Now, bound together, they must survive as a single unit. Easier said that done, considering that she's human and he's an alien. Oh, and there's the small matter of government experimentation. . .

**Warnings: **Language, and the tiniest hint of gore!

**Author's Notes: **Alright, I'm obviously addicted to this story or something. You guys are in luck, I was able to whip out my homework and get it done so I could write this. I'm not sure if the next chapter will be ready in time, but next weekend. . . Who knows. I'll try to aim for updating on the weekends, but my school and life get in the way. Hopefully things slow down a little so I'll be able to write a little bit more.

I'm practicing lower word counts, because I can get very, very wordy. So things are a little smaller, but watch, I might just break that unofficial vow. Anyway. I hope you enjoy! We're finally getting into the meat of things, but the next chapter will probably be the best one, I think. You get to find out what happened to Riley, Suraj, Riley's dad. . . and everybody else on the dig crew.

But I'm thinking a lot of people will probably already know.

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><p>"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage."<br>-Friedrich Nietzsche

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><p>The taste of sugar was heavy on her tongue.<p>

Riley swallowed, closing her eyes and doing her best to stop her heart from fluttering in her chest. She was terrified - she didn't know what the hell they were going to do to her today, but she wasn't looking forward to it. Not in the slightest. Already, the muscles in her arms and legs were feeling heavy, and thinking quickly, Riley sat herself down on the floor before her legs gave out. She sat there, breathing slowly and steadily, her skin already aching and pulsing, her nerves crackling under her skin.

Whenever they drugged her, it meant testing. And whenever testing was going to happen, it meant scalpels and needles and electrical shocks and _pain_. Odd, that she should still be afraid of pain, when she'd been living with it for so, so long. . .

Her head started to spin, but in an act of defiance, Riley remained stubbornly sitting upright. She had to prove she was still strong _somehow_. Her soul may have been dying, but she still had the strength to stand, and that was something. She knew, somewhere, in the back of her mind, that if she stopped resisting in tiny, defiant ways, she was going to forfeit completely to the madness. And when that day came, she would finally die inside.

Lead replaced her blood, and Riley fought against gravity, but it was winning. She slumped over, clumsily catching herself before she collapsed, and exhaustion tugged at her as she laid on the cold floor of her cell. _My kingdom for a blanket_, she thought bitterly. She hadn't slept with one for years, it had seemed, and she was permanently cold. It had been so long, she was positive that she'd never be warm again in her life. Nausea swirled through her as the sickly sweetness flooded her mouth.

_If I ever live through this_, she thought, drowsy, _I'm never going to eat candy again.  
><em>  
>Her eyes closed, but she was still awake. If she tried, she could crack them open just a fraction to take in a very foggy and distorted world. Muted voices floated to her from the other side of the door, and after just a few moments, it slid open, permitting men to enter the room. She could see the shiny black boots of a few soldiers, but a vast majority of them were scientists, the White Coats. Riley couldn't understand what they were saying, but she could hear snippets and phrases. "Blood tests" and "surgery" were among the most prominent.<p>

Hands grabbed her, hefting her up and off the floor. Riley couldn't have fought back, even if she'd tried. The drugs were flooding through her system, turning her feeble and helpless as a tiny kitten. The hands and arms deposited her onto a gurney, not even bothering to strap her down, adding insult to injury. The White Coats adjusted the gurney, and then they were off, wheeling her through whatever godforsaken complex they were in.

In the back of her mind, she felt that voice stirring, growling and snapping and fighting through the veil of drugs for her attention. Riley hummed mentally, not particularly caring whether or not they communicated today.

In fact, she was quite pissed at it, and she didn't really have a desire to.

A frustrated growl was her answer, and it tore through the veil of drugs with that much more fervor, determined to reach her.

A beep sounded to her right, and she flicked her eyes to it sluggishly, trying to find where it was coming from.

"_. . . they're talking. . . . not out?_" One of the White Coats asked.

The others answered, but they responded too quickly for Riley to catch what they were saying.

Overhead, the lights were stabbing into her eyes like knives, making her want to wince. She got a small reprieve as they entered a room with a matte metal ceiling, but fear lanced through her whens he saw the domed casing of a surgery light. Her heart gave a muted thump, and she felt her fingers itch. . . she wanted to get out. She knew what this meant.

Her suspicions were only proven when gloved hands grabbed her head, twisted it to the side, and began to strap her down. Somebody fitted a plastic mask over her face, and she heard the shallow, fearful pants of her breathing. The sharp smell of alcohol weaved through her nose, and a second later, she felt a wet dabbing at her head as they began to prepare the bald side of her skull. She breathed, feeling dizzy and faint, and she knew she only had seconds.

_Mesh'in'ga. __Ki de __nracha._

_Bastard_, she seethed, _I hate you._

_I hate you. For what you've done._

He only laughed.

* * *

><p>A week, it turned out, was not the fated day.<p>

Either was two weeks. Or even _three_.

They did, however, gain a lot of new people around the digsite. Riley yawned and stretched, shaking her head as she tried to stay awake. She'd been up for a solid eighteen hours now - but who could blame her? For as long as she'd been on her father's digsite, she'd been absolutely enthralled with the door. She couldn't get enough of it. She stared at pictures, translating runes. . . well, no, not really translating. And therein lied that absolute amazement of it all: there was no way to translate what she was looking at. She'd tried everything - Aztec, Mayan, Incan. . . Latin, Arabic - languages she didn't even _know_. But nothing even came close. And that was just the language.

That wasn't even accounting for how the runes were _lasered _into the rock. Which was just. . . scientifically impossible. Never mind the fact that lasers weren't going to be invented for another few thousand of years. . . It was a lot to take in.

Riley absently heard a commotion outside of her tent, and she perked up, looking at the entrance to her tiny alcove. Suraj was just outside - a lance of panic flashed through Riley, and she glanced down at her watch. . . Oh. Deflating in relief, she nodded. He was fifteen minutes early. She and Suraj were supposed to go to the door and investigate it today - it was a weekly ritual, actually. She would go, and try to pick apart the language as best as she was able. . . which, literally speaking, meant she was going to sit and stare at it and wonder, "_what the fuck did this?_"

Another voice joined the first, and Riley sat up, letting her pencil dangle between her fingers. Moments later, her tent flap opened, and an old Nepalese woman barged in, snapping at Suraj, who whined back a reply - and one level look from the old woman had Suraj standing silently, his lips pressed into a thin line. Turning to her, the old woman smiled warmly.

"Namaste." Riley said, rising to her feet. "Namaste, Old Mother. Timi lai kasto cha?**"

The Nepalese woman, wrinkled with age and time, reached forward and grabbed her hands. "Good. I am good, my child. Come, come, sit."

Old Mother ushered her forward, into one of the small chairs Riley had in her tent, and obediently, she sat. Immediately, the woman began to take her hair and plait it.

"Mama," Suraj said, whining again, "No time. We going."

"There is always time." Old Mother said, her voice soft and accented.

Old Mother, Riley had been pleased to discover, had once been very young, and somewhat wealthy. She had studied for years in local English schools, and when she'd had the money, had studied English in America. But time and life had changed many things, and she'd found herself in Nepal, raising a great number of children. She might not have gotten anywhere with her English education, but as she had told Riley before, she was happy with what she had learned. _"Life is a journey_," She told the teen once, "_And I savor every step of it, bitter or sweet_."

"Thank you, Mother," Riley said, smiling at the sulking Suraj, "I'm afraid I can't braid my hair without mirrors."

"As always, I enjoy it. It has been a long while since I have had a daughter."

Suraj crossed his arms moodily.

Another thing about Old Mother's brood: only one daughter out of her seven sons, and that daughter had moved to another region of Nepal many years ago. Riley, ignoring Suraj's pouting, leaned back and relaxed, loving the feeling of another person caring for her hair.

"Have you much success with the door?" Old Mother asked. Riley kept her eyes closed, feeling boneless and relaxed.

"No, but today we are going to try and open it."

"Ah, so today is finally the day."

Riley chuckled. "I hope so. My father can hardly contain himself."

"Your father is a good man," Old Mother replied, "He treats the Nepalese well. . . unlike the soldiers."

Riley opened her eyes and frowned, mirroring Suraj's expression. Nobody had expected the soldiers to come, but come they had, in numbers nobody had expected. The digsite had practically transformed overnight, turning from archeological expedition to military camp. Soldiers demanded that people coming to and from the digsite remain carefully counted and tracked. Not only that, but they guarded the perimeter fiercely, had installed curfews, and weren't afraid to punish those that dared to disobey it.

As Riley Landon, daughter of Henry Landon, Riley had special privileges, but she hated them. Archeology wasn't about soldiers with guns, floodlights, or security checks. It was about digging in the dirt and trying to figure out ancient cultures!

"We're trying to talk with the benefactor of the dig. Find out what the hell happened. I hate them as much as you, Old Mother."

The woman chuckled, and pat her shoulders, indicating she was done. Riley stood, ignoring Suraj's impatient jostling, and took Old Mother's hands in her own, squeezing them affectionately. The woman smiled back at her in turn.

"Do not worry. The Nepalese are hardy people. We have weathered worse storms than this. Now go, my daughter. I believe you have a door to investigate."

Suraj let loose a word in his language, and if Riley had to guess, it probably translated very closely to, '_finally!_'

Riley leaned in, pecking the woman on the cheek and giving her a smile, bidding her goodbye. Glad to have her hair out of her face and braided (making for an easy time cramming herself into tight nooks and crannies to explore), Riley grabbed a thick winter coat and slipped into it as she and Suraj made their way outside. The digsite was a bustle of activity, like it was normally, only now soldiers milled about, geared with protective vests and toting around menacing black guns. Riley moved by them, uncaring, and forced Suraj to walk to her left, so they wouldn't question him.

Racist assholes, if you asked Riley. They interrogated every Nepalese that crossed their path, but didn't ask any of the _white people _where the hell they were going or what the fuck they were doing. It was almost as if they suspected the mountains folk of hiding something. So long as she made it explicitly apparent that she and Suraj were walking together, they didn't bug them. Well, that, and the soldiers had learned early on that Henry Landon did not appreciate his daughter being fucked with, something he'd made explicitly clear to the benefactor.

One of them had tried to grab her and "subdue" her, and Riley had shown him that _she _did not appreciate being fucked with. She'd broken his leg and dislocated his arm for his troubles. The soldiers apparently weren't very well informed.

Henry had had to leave his little baby girl for months at a time with an aunt. . . and constantly fearing for his daughter's safety, had enrolled her in an MMA gym and a taekwondo school. Riley had been training in martial arts since she could talk.

Though, if she tried the same stunt now, she was fairly certain the soldiers would be able to react in kind. But at the very least, she could fight back. But the Nepalese, however. . .

"Look, Rileh," Suraj said, pointing, "Many peoples moving."

Riley craned her neck back, looking up the small slope leading to the hollowed-out tunnel leading to the cave. . . and a stream of people were rushing in, buzzing with emotion.

"C'mon." She said, breaking out into a jog. Suraj followed her, sticking close to her side as she ascended the slope. The soldiers were trying to keep people from entering the tunnel, but there was only two of them (at the moment), and about a hundred dig workers trying to gain entrance. . . no easy task to keep them out. Riley, waiting for an opportunity, ducked down into the crowd and yanked Suraj along behind her, dashing into the cave.

A wall of freezing air smacked into them. Despite it being summer, the cave was absolutely frigid. It had a lovely temperature of 32 degrees consistently, which was incredibly odd, given that the digsite averaged a temperature of 60 - 72 degrees. So how it was so cold. . . well, it was anybody's guess. But Riley had a theory it had to do with the depth of the cave, and their proximity to Mt. Everest. Suraj cast a worried glance behind himself.

"Rileh, we not have done that."

"_Should, _my friend. Should not have done that. But we did. C'mon. Dad was signed in, we we're going in. I'd like to see them stop me."

More frenzied dig workers sprinted to and fro, but Riley kept a steady jog as she and Suraj descended to the door. From the tunnel's entrance, the door was only a half mile down, and the way to it was studded with bright white LED lanterns that illuminated every nook and cranny. Riley tried to keep herself from getting nervous, but it wasn't working. She didn't know what the hell had worked everyone up, but it had to be big.

Within moments, the door loomed ahead of them, and Riley skidded to a halt, finding a semicircle of soldiers surrounding it. For a moment, she was taken aback. It was _open. _They'd cracked open the door - that would explain why everybody looked so hurried. . . But it didn't explain the fear.

Scanning the crowds, she looked around, but she couldn't see the one person she was looking for. Frowning, and her anxiety growing, Riley dashed forward, and snagged the first dig crew member she found. It was a Sherpa, looking frightened, his face pale.

"Hey! Hey, where is my father?"

The man babbled in Nepalese too quick for her to translate - not that she could, she'd only been there a month - but she turned to Suraj expectantly. The fifteen-year-old stepped up, grabbed the man around the arms and asked him a question. The man took a while, but he finally responded, stuttering the whole while. Riley bounced back and forth on her feet, biting the inside of her cheek, and waited impatiently. Finally, Suraj released the man, who took off at a sprint for the mouth of the tunnel.

"Suraj, what did he say?" Riley demanded. The teen looked at her, hesitating, and her stomach dropped. "_Suraj!_"

"He say. . . He say they open door."

"Yes, yes, and?"

"And crew go down. Your father go. The radio. . . There was screams. And nobody come back up."

For the first time in her life, Riley finally understood what the expression "earth falling out from under your feet" meant.

* * *

><p>"Rileh, we not do this. Dangerous. Bad!"<p>

"We _can _not, but we so, so _are_." She whispered back.

Suraj shifted next to her, one of his hands curled around her arm and squeezing in nervousness. Night had fallen, and the pair of them were crouched behind a rock, hiding from one of the glaring spotlights. It was by sheer luck the pair of them hadn't been caught yet, and rounded up with all the others. But Suraj was a lot sneakier than Riley had given him credit for - the teen had somehow snuck them both out of the tunnel and to the surrounding landscape, hiding them both.

And for good reason, too - shortly after Riley had discovered the initial dig team had been lost with what laid behind the door, the soldiers had started rounding everyone up and putting them into "quarantine tents." Lethal force had been authorized. . . Two dig workers had died. Riley had committed that scene to memory, watching as blood had bloomed from their chests as they'd fallen, bodies going limp. . .

And the worst part was nobody knew _why_.

Riley shifted behind the rock, carefully examining the soldier's patrol routes. There was a heavy security presence outside, but most of them were tending to the dig workers inside of the quarantine tents. Which meant, if her math was correct, that there was a thin task force inside. . . easy pickings. She hoped. If her plan worked, anyway. She and Suraj had to time this perfectly. Once they were inside, she didn't give a rat's ass about what the hell happened, or what alarms they set off.

"Rileh, the wind moves."

"Wind moves?" Riley echoed, looking at him and frowning.

Suraj pointed to the lip of a hill, his face pale. "Spirits. They watch us."

Riley looked to where he was pointing, but could see nothing. She shook her head and examined the dig site a second time. "I don't have time for ghosts, Suraj. C'mon. Let's move. We need to snag two grenades there, see them?" She pointed to a small arms cache that the soldiers repeatedly checked into, and laying at the very top were grenades of some kind. She had no idea what they were, but they'd be just fine.

"We're going down to the door. And I'm gonna kill whoever gets in my way." She vowed. Gesturing to her friend, she whispered for him to stay close, and as best as she could, began to slink away. Suraj, much more used to the rocky cliffsides, was three times more quiet than she was, but Riley took point anyway. Quickly and carefully, the duo made their way down the cliffside, and darted their way in and out of tents, using them as cover.

It was actually pathetically easy. The soldiers were busy in the quarantine camp, taking people away into a makeshift tent they'd set up, and with the ruckus the dig crew was making, Riley was able to snag three grenades from the pile. Rushing back to a tent, Riley joined Suraj, and flicked on a tiny pen light. One of the grenades she'd grabbed was a flashbang, and the other two were. . . stuns? Or something. She wasn't entirely sure. But whatever they were, they'd work.

"You have?" Suraj whispered. Riley nodded, flicking off the pen light and clipping the grenades to her belt. She'd use the smoke bomb first. The instructions were easy, even. Pull the pin, flick the switch, and throw. There was a three-second cook time, and it promised a minimum of five minutes of cover. It was all she needed. Not without a heart, Riley passed Suraj one of the stun-grenade-things, and gave him a nod. It was time to go.

It was odd, how easy it was. But together, the pair of them ducked and weaved through rocks and shadows and tents, watching to make sure the coast was clear. And, little by little, they made it closer and closer to the tunnel. And eventually, despite the odds, they actually _made _it. Even Riley was surprised. Battle-hardened soldiers, letting two kids skate through their guard? It sounded almost impossible.

Behind her, Suraj whispered about the moving wind, and Riley shot him a glare. "Not now, dude."

Wisely, her friend shut up, and Riley crept to the tunnel entrance, palming the grenade. "Okay. We're going to run down the entrance, and I'm going to throw this, and then we're going to run in. It's not a great plan, but it's the only one I've got."

Suraj looked at her blankly. "Scuse?"

Riley shook her head. "Just follow me."

And with that, she took off at a sprint. There was no telling what they'd find when they got into the tunnel, but she knew the door would be guarded. Suraj ran along behind her, and Riley found that it felt like only seconds had passed before she was in front of the door, the soldiers yelling out in surprise and shock. Riley popped the pin, thumbed the switch, and chucked the grenade. It felt like she was watching everything in slow motion as the grenade flew up and then crept down, but when it hit the ground, it was as though a metric ton of dry ice had hit the surface of a lake. Smoke and fog exploded everywhere, covering everything in a thick cloud. Riley ran straight into it, not even stopping, viciously jamming the windpipe of one soldier who was unlucky enough to wander into her path.

Suraj, smart and fast, held onto her belt as she dashed through the cloud, jumping over the fallen soldier. And in moments, they were through the door, plunging into the darkness. Riley didn't stop, even though she knew it was stupid, but she ran her hand along the wall and jogged on, knowing distance was what was going to save them.

Light, however, speared through the darkness, and voices barked at them - so did the crack of a gun. Something hit the ground dangerously close to her foot, and Suraj gasped, panicking, but Riley latched onto the back of his shirt and dragged him, determined to go into the cave.

That, she supposed, was her downfall. Literally.

One moment, the floor was there, and the next it was just. . . gone. Riley was unashamed to admit that she screamed as she went plummeting down into the darkness - and it was cut short as she collided with a hard surface, again and again. Her head cracked against it, and reality quickly slipped from her grasp. Numbly, however, she felt herself hit the floor and remain still, and she laid there, feeling a hot prickling on her scalp.

Moments later, however, hands grabbed her, and a bright light pierced her eyes - Riley scrambled to get away from the soldier, but a voice finally pierced the fog of her brain. "Rileh! Rileh! Is me!"

"Suraj?" She asked groggily. She blinked, and held a hand in front of her face, shielding her eyes. Quickly, Suraj pointed the light away, and Riley blinked, scrubbing at her face. How the hell. . . What the fuck had happened? Eventually, the world came into focus, and she looked at Suraj, concern flooding through her.

"Oh my god. Sit still. Don't move."

The teen's face was bloody, streams of red dripping down his nose and lips. He must have hit his head, just as she had. Riley was quick to dab away the blood around his nose, and it was obvious that it was broken, but there was nothing she could do for him. She didn't know how to set noses. Though it hurt, he would probably have to live with it for right now. Same went for her, too.

"We fell." Suraj said, pointing the flashlight up. "There. See?"

Yes. About thirty feet above them, a ledge was present. . . Though Riley had no idea how they'd survived the fall. She could see several rocky protrusions on the way down - and. . . !

"Ropes! Look! Suraj, those are ropes! The dig team was here. C'mon. We gotta get up and find my dad!"

"Before soljur come." Suraj agreed.

Quickly, the pair got up, and Riley fished out her own flashlight. Their breath curled into the air, and Riley shivered. It felt like it was hovering closer to zero degrees than 32. Quickly moving forward, the pair continued into another tunnel, a little aching and bruised, but doing alright. Silence followed them, and Riley turned to look behind her, at the ledge, but she didn't see any beams of lights or hear any surprised yells.

_Were are the soldiers?_ She thought, but then shook her head. Whatever, it didn't matter. What _did _matter was finding her father and the dig crew.

Just as quickly as there was a tunnel, it evolved into. . . a temple. Riley stood there, momentarily shellshocked as she stared at the grand, rich architecture. It, like so many other things, were just so. . . alien. Suraj appeared similarly as starstruck, and he approached the wall - where murals laid. He whispered something in Nepalese, running a bare hand across the lasered art.

"Spirits," Suraj said, "Wind spirits."

"Old myths of gods, probably," Riley agreed, looking at the etchings, "Look. It's fighting a serpent. But serpents aren't really native to Nepalese culture. . . That's Aztec and Maya and Incan territory."

Suraj shook his head, not understanding much of what she said, and Riley followed suit. Suraj needed her to break things down into small chunks for him to absorb, and she wasn't going to do that when they had to find the dig crew and outrun soldiers. Digging around in her pocket, Riley pulled out a glowstick, popped it, shook it, and dropped it on the ground.

"C'mon, Suraj. We've got places to go. Those glowsticks in your pack? Break them and drop them. We'll find our way back." Riley pointed to the ground, knowing he wouldn't understand what she was saying, but he nodded his head. They were going to play a modern version of Hansel and Gretel. As they continued along, Riley did her best to ignore the structure around her and focus on finding her father. But it was difficult. . . Primarily because it was so _foreign_. There was just no way that human hands built what she had seen, because there were laser etchings and rocks that were most definitely not from Nepal.

She shook her head, and steeling herself, moved forward. She had to continue on, she had to find her dad. If she didn't. . . There was no way she was going back to the soldiers. Hell, if her father and the dig team had made it this far, she was fairly certain that they had found another exit. It was ridiculous and stupid to build a tunnel, enclosure. . . and. . . and. . .

God, the surprises just kept coming.

The hallway they were in eventually evened out, and opened to another, much larger structure. Riley's mouth fell open as she just stopped and stood. They had come into a giant, domed atrium that was simply _massive_. From what she could see, there was rocky terraces leading down, to a central pit, and hundreds more doorways surrounded them, each leading to their own tunnel. Riley stood there, stupidly, for more than a minute as she just gawked in wonder.

_Was this what my father was looking at? God, it's gigantic, and look at it - utterly stunning._

Suraj tapped at her arm, and she shook her head, getting rid of her awe. Suraj was pointing to something - a glowstick. One that was blue, not green.

"Dad uses green glowsticks! Suraj, you're amazing. Let's get over to it."

The terraced steps were large - roughly six feet. Bigger than Riley. But Riley dangled herself over the edge and eased herself onto the lower level while Suraj popped a glowstick and threw it into the doorway they'd come from. Riley was sore as they made their way down five levels, but finally, after what felt like an eternity, they were standing in front of the fading blue glowstick. Riley picked it up, examining it. She knew for a fact that their glowsticks lasted a solid six hours, and this one's light was already fading.

Which meant that her father and the dig crew had been there for at _least _five hours. . . Maybe longer.

"Rileh. . . rope." Suraj whispered.

Riley dropped the glowstick, discarding it, and her heart froze as she looked down and saw the rope moving, wiggling. . .

"Something's coming up." She rasped, her stomach dropping.

* * *

><p><em>Namaste <em>is the Nepalese way of saying hello and goodbye.

_Timi lai kasto cha?_ means "How are you?"

M_esh'in'ga. __Ki de __nracha._ means == The battle dreamtime. I am Relentless.


	4. The Bitter Truth

**Symbiosis **

**Rating: **T - M (Rating my increase in later chapters).

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this, but I so wish I did. The Yautja are probably the coolest alien species I've run into.

**Summary**:She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was trying to gain honor and prestige. But life had other plans. Now, bound together, they must survive as a single unit. Easier said that done, considering that she's human and he's an alien. Oh, and there's the small matter of government experimentation. . .

**Warnings: **Language, thoughts/attempted suicide.

**Author's Notes:** Oh boy. This is the longest chapter I've written so far. Whoops. Anyway, I'll let you get into it.

Next chapter, action gets rolling. But I had to tie up some loose ends. I'm excited to start exploring their relationship. It's different. But anyway, not much to say, thank you guys for all of your reviews, though!

* * *

><p>"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome."<br>-Isabel Allende

* * *

><p><em>I'm really fucking tired of doing this with you<em>, she snapped, anger rushing through her.

He snapped back at her, lashing out, but she didn't even flinch. She was used to it. The pain it caused wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Before, in the beginning, it had left her incapacitated for hours. . . But now? Now, it was nothing compared to the physical pain she endured every day. The odd mental attacks were just. . . strange. Something she wasn't quite sure she'd ever get accustomed to.

_No, seriously_, she continued, _you keep doing this. There's no point. Unless you want to make me depressed - oh wait. You've already doing that. Thank you _so _much. I'm tired of being here. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of the White Coats. I want an out_.

A slow, burning anger radiated from his side, coupled with a strong rash of frustration. . . Well then, that made two of them.

Riley breathed slowly, laying on the bed and trying her best to stop the swirling of the room. Every time, it was the same. Whenever they went poking around in her skull, or cut open another part of her body, she'd get just a few minutes to lay on the gurney before they wheeled her ass back into the Room. Maybe the surgeons were taking a quick break, or the White Coats were looking around in her paperwork. . . she didn't know. But she did care. Just because it offered her a change of scenery, because she got to look at something other than the Room.

She stared at the bloody gauze bandages, at the scalpels and clamps that laid just an arm's reach away.

If she could just summon some hidden reservoir of strength, she could slide her hand over and grab the scalpel that gleamed in the light, stained with her blood. And then she could finally take herself out of this hellhole. It was already coated in her blood. . . what was the difference in taking it to her neck and arms before the White Coats could stop her?

Motivation kindled, she began to slide her hand across the bed, her fingers itching to reach the metal scalpel. Inch by glorious inch, her hand moved, coming closer and closer to her goal.

But just as quickly, a fierce, biting pain speared through her head, and she hissed, wrenching her eyes shut and fighting back tears. Explosions sounded in her temples, and it felt as though somebody were rubbing the inside of her skull with sandpaper. Had the White Coats noticed? Was that what they had done to her - installed some kind of new mental-punishment system?

A furious roar answered her question.

_You _idiot_, _she seethed_, just let me do it!_

No, came the infuriated reply, _there is m-di yin'tekai!** You will not die this way!_

In another time, another life, maybe Riley would have been shocked to hear him speaking in English. All through her time of knowing him, he'd only spoken in whatever fucked up alien tongue he called native. But there he was, talking to her in somewhat understandable English. His voice - mentally, at least - sounded. . . kind of pleasant. Strange, accented, and foreign, but pleasant. Riley fought against the pain, intent on getting the scalpel, but when it escalated so much she yelped, she gave in. It wasn't worth it at that point - if she tried to move her hand, he would crack her brain in half. He was determined to keep her alive.

Just to torture her.

Riley gave in, defeated. There was only so much pain a girl could take.

_You win_, she said, _you just want to make me insane. Fine. _

Surprisingly, his fury abated, and Riley regarded him curiously. He'd never cooled off so quickly before. She grew suspicious - and scared - when she felt a thin thread of confidence radiate from him.

_There's more_, he continued, _so much more you do not know, Ooman._

Like what?

The truth.

Riley closed her eyes and sucked in a steadying breath, trying to shake the last of the pain from her body. _What truth? This is it. We're being experimented on. I can talk to an alien in my head. What else is there to know?_

The door opened, and she heard footsteps enter. Riley wisely kept her eyes shut and laid perfectly still as they approached her, hoping they wouldn't notice she was awake. But her plan, like so many others before it, failed spectacularly. The very first thing she felt was a warm, latex-gloved hand on her cold arm, and the sting of a needle a beat later. A cool, acidic bite raced under her skin, and within seconds, she began to feel dizzy and sleep.

_What happened that day, Ooman. I will show you. . . _He said something else, but Riley didn't quite hear what he said.

As she closed her eyes, she heard the creaking of a rope, instead. She smelled the earthy scent of a frozen, ancient, alien temple. . .

* * *

><p>"Oh my god, Suraj," Riley said, panicking, her head whipping left and right, "We've got to hide. Where can we hide?" She whispered, fearful her voice would carry.<p>

She nearly jumped out of her skin as her friend grabbed onto her hand and dragged her into a nearby tunnel, where they both hunkered down in the shadows. Suraj bravely placed Riley behind him, and just for a moment, Riley was grateful. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she was glad to just be coddled for a second. Riley bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted copper on her tongue, and in front of her, she could feel Suraj shaking as they both crouched in the dark, watching the rope.

_Soldiers, _Riley thought_, it's going to be soldiers. Oh god, Daddy, please be okay. _

She heard a grunt, a low, very explicit curse, and then a hand popped over the edge of the lip of the step. Riley jumped, and Suraj followed suit, and it took everything she had in her not to cry out in surprise. Shaking her head, she pressed against the wall, breathing in deeply. She had to keep control of herself - what if the soldiers were somewhere near? She couldn't afford to give away their position. There was no telling what would happen to the two of them if the soldiers got them. Not to mention if this man was a soldier. . .

Another curse, and the rest of the arm flopped up over the side, followed closely by a head.

A head Riley knew.

"Daddy!" Riley called out, shooting all pretenses of hiding to tell. She jumped up to her feet and rushed forward, Suraj scrambling to follow her.

Henry looked shocked - so shocked, he let go of the rope. Riley dove, stomach hitting the stone floor as she latched onto her father's jacket. Suraj grabbed his other arm, and with just a moment of struggle, both teens hauled Henry Landon back up onto the step. Riley breathed heavily, rolling over onto her side and looking down into the pit. Her first assumption about the underground temple had been wrong. The steps didn't go all the way to the bottom. They stopped right thee, and there was a solid thirty foot drop to the bottom, where the central pit and hole laid.

In the dark, Riley saw shadows moving, but her father grabbed her shoulder, yanking her up and clutching her to him for all he was worth. Riley choked, wanting to separate from him, but she heard him exhale a shaky sob.

"Oh my god, Riley. _Riley_. Christ, I never thought I'd see you again."

Inexplicably, tears burned in her eyes. Riley wrenched them shut and wrapped her arms around her father as best as she was able. "Me too." She said, "Daddy. . ."

She heard Suraj shift next to them, and that brought her back into the present. Riley allowed herself just another second of being squeezed, and then she wriggled in his hold. "Dad. Dad, something's wrong. The soldiers quarantined everyone at the dig-"

Her father froze as though she'd slapped him, and then he separated from her, hands frantically scrabbling over her face. "They didn't do anything to you, did they? What happened? Shit, I know what happened. . . Christ."

Riley shared a glance with Suraj, and she swallowed, trying to keep her fear at bay. "Daddy, stop. I don't understand what's going on. What happened? Where are the rest of the dig crew?"

At that, his face went white as a sheet. Henry Landon just sat there, his eyes growing glassy and faraway as he stared off beyond Riley, into the darkness of the temple.

"Dad. Daddy." Riley said, shaking him, "_Dad_. What _happened?_"

He shook his head, clutching her fiercely, as though he were afraid that she would disappear. "We have to leave. We're going. Riley, oh my god, what are you _doing _here? No, no, we're leaving. Suraj? Suraj, stay close. You and Riley stay together. Don't let each other out of your sights. Do you hear me?" As Henry spoke, he yanked them all up to their feet, and Riley grabbed Suraj's hand as he began to pull them to the steps, mumbling to himself. Anything he said aloud wasn't really to them, it was all to himself. Kind of.

Riley was severely confused - she didn't really think she understood anything that was going on. Suraj and she shared a glance, and then she looked back to her father.

"Daddy, calm down. It's okay - the soldiers aren't chasing us. Just calm down, okay? Tell me what's happening."

"No time to explain. C'mon. We have to go. You two - glowstick. I see. Riley-"

"No, Dad!" Riley snapped, snatching her had back as Henry reached for it, "Tell me what's going on!"

"Riley, there isn't _time_-"

"_Make_ time. Suraj and I fought through soldiers, Dad. I had to use a grenade. We fell - I probably have a concussion. Surajj has a broken nose. So just take a few seconds and _explain_."

Her father looked at her, shocked. Inwardly, Riley was, too. She'd never actively snapped at her father - they got along quite well. But here, after being chased by soldiers. . . Riley just wanted to know what the fuck was going on. She loved her dad - and she was glad that he was safe - but obviously he knew something, and Riley felt like she deserved to know what it was. Her father looked as though he were waging an internal war, but finally, he nodded his head.

"Alright. Just - please, Riley, Suraj, let's talk and _move_. I'll explain. But there isn't _time_. Now c'mon. Up. I'll help you."

He knelt down, offering his knee as a podium, and obediently, Riley stepped up. Just a few minutes ago, she and Suraj had descended the steps, and already her body was protesting having to go back _up _the way she'd come. Aftera moment, however, she hefted herself up over the stone step, and reached around to help Suraj up. Together, the teens grabbed her father and helped him - although he didn't need it much. Henry Landon spent copious amounts of time in the gym and exercising - he could probably bench press her and Suraj combined. As she helped her father up, however, Riley noticed that she was bruised, his jacket was sliced in various places, and he had a few deep gashes over his face and hands.

"Dad?" Riley asked, reaching out.

He shook his head, and continued on, forcing them to the next step. "I don't know what they are, baby girl. They're something. Aliens, monsters - I don't _know_. But in the pit there were. . . There are eggs. The first one hatched and some spider-thing latched onto Jerry's face. . . Others followed. I ran," He said, his tone shaking, "I ran, and I got away. But just a few hours later these black _things _chased after me. . . I never thought I'd see you again."

"Daddy, that doesn't make any sense."

Her father shook his head. "It doesn't. None of it makes sense. But they _knew_. The benefactor fucking knew. He had to. The soldiers. . . God, Weyland-Yutani funded this whole shitshow. . . Just keep moving, baby girl. I'm gonna get us out of here. All of us. Up, Suraj."

"Aliens, dad?" Riley said, helping to pick her friend up another step, "There aren't aliens."

"Monsters. Creatures. I don't know what they are, Riley. They're _something_."

Riley shook her head, but headed over to the next step, where her father was already waiting. She jumped up, her arms aching in protest, and then helped Suraj jump up. . . and she saw something. The same shadows as before, but they separated, and became their own entity. And honestly, Riley couldn't explain what it was. Quick and silent as death itself, it slithered up the steps, glistening in the dark, alien, foreign, a _monster_. Suraj yelled in fear, grabbing onto her father, trying to hoist him up, and Riley stuttered, reaching to grab his jacket.

The creature got him first.

Henry dug his fingers into the platform, and Riley faintly heard herself screaming, trying to tell him to jump up, to _fight_, but in a flash, he was gone, disappearing over the edge and into the dark. Riley sat there, but only for a moment, and then she was scrambling to get up, to jump down and follow after her father, but Suraj tackled her around her waist, pinning her to the ground. Riley fought against him, incomprehensible words leaving her mouth as she tried to free herself, but Suraj was screaming too, terrified.

"Rileh! Rileh, pleese!"

"_Let go!_" Riley yelled, throwing a hard elbow into his stomach, "_Let me go Suraj! Daddy! Dad_-"

"More! More demons, Rileh! _Look!_"

She didn't have to.

A tail, topped with a sharp point, speared the ground right next to her hand, and Riley finally stilled, ice flooding her veins. A taloned hand wrapped around the edge of the rock, and out of the darkness, another dark, glistening mass arose. She came face-to-face with a head that had no eyes, but its lip pulled back with a menacing hiss, revealing two sets of teeth. . .

Riley screamed.

* * *

><p>Riley had never been much of a runner, but there she was, dashing out into the unknown, running faster than she ever had before. Her breaths rasped in her throat, scouring her lungs. Suraj, quicker, faster, and much more likely to survive, kept pulling her along, his hand practically super glued to her own. Riley honestly wasn't sure if she was going to make it. She kept lagging behind, and diligently, Suraj kept pulling her, determined not to leave her.<p>

Behind them, so close she could practically feel their teeth on her neck, were the creatures, hissing and snarling and growling and shrieking. Demons, Suraj had called them. Demons straight from the pits of hell itself. Suraj yanked her arm so hard she almost felt her shoulder dislocate from her socket, but Riley was grateful from it. A tail tried to spear her leg through, attempting to maim her so it could sink its teeth into her.

Their flashlights, bright LEDs sewn into the straps of their backpacks, bounced along the walls, making Riley half-dazed as she tried to see exactly what was going on. But every time she looked, there was always some bright, dripping piece of black the light landed on, and another _thing _would leap out of the shadows and try to pin her to the ground so it could eviscerate her.

Suraj turned a corner, and Riley promptly collided with his back as he skidded to a halt. Breathlessly, she looked up, and she very nearly shit herself as she saw one of the black creatures looming above them, lips pulling back-

In a fluid movement, it uncurled from the ceiling, tail whipping around itself to lash out and hit them. Riley, purely functioning on survival instinct, threw herself into Suraj's back and tackled them both to the ground. Adrenaline fueling her efforts, she practically dragged the teen back to his feet and did an abrupt about-turn. Somehow, they survived the encounter, and they dashed out into the hallway, Riley taking point. She had no fucking clue where she was going, but so long as there were tunnels, she knew she could run somewhere, keep them alive for just a few minutes longer.

Unfortunately, the setback had given the monsters enough time to catch up.

Riley skidded to a halt, a sharp yell leaving her as she saw her death in front of her.

Suraj, however, dragged her a second time, and Riley followed behind him blindly, praying and wishing for some sort of escape-

Darkness closed in around her, and the floor fell out from under them.

For the second time that day, Riley screamed as she went plummeting down, unaware of when the ground would come up to meet her - but it did. Painfully. She laid there, wheezing as she tried to suck air back into her lungs, pain radiating from every nerve of her body. She moved, slowly pushing her hands under her to get onto her hands and knees, and tried to gather her bearings. Just a few feet away from her, she could see Suraj, also picking himself up, his nose bleeding once more.

"Suraj?" She wheezed. "Suraj, you okay?"

"No. . ." He rasped in reply. "Hurt."

"Makes two of us." She whispered.

As Riley picked herself up, the silence wrapped around the both of them, and she wished it didn't. The silence gave her a moment to think, to reflect on what had happened. In her mind, she could see herself reaching to grab her father's jacket, could practically feel the fabric brushing against her fingertips before it was ripped from her grasp. It was messed up. One second, her father had been there, and the next, he hadn't. He'd just disappeared. He hadn't cried out, yelled to her. . . Just silence. A part of her wanted to deny the fact that her father was dead, but the larger, more rational part, prayed that his death had been swift and painless. Her father deserved that much.

Despite their situation, Riley collapsed onto her knees beside Suraj, and tears dripped from her eyes.

Suraj looked up, and his eyes softened. "Rileh. . ."

She shook her head.

"No," She murmured, "It's okay. We're going to get out of here. We're going to live. It's what. . . He. . . Told us to do."

The words felt like broken glass on her tongue, but she forced herself to say them. And Suraj, kind, compassionate Suraj, understood. He gave her a hug, wrapping his arms around her waist, and for a moment, Riley just sat there, letting it happen. But she felt the teen's hands shaking, and in that second, she remembered that Suraj was just a kid. He was just as lost and scared shitless as she was. He needed somebody to protect him, too. Old Mother was waiting for him on the surface. . . if the soldiers hadn't done something to her.

Shaking her head, she stood, and grabbed her friend.

"We're gonna make it out of this. I swear. Do you hear me?"

Tears glistened in his eyes, but he nodded his head. Riley mussed a hand through his hair, offering as much comfort as she could give him, and then turned her attention to their surroundings.

Wherever they had landed, the creatures hadn't found them yet. Which was a good thing, but it also meant they were probably looking for them, too. Riley cast a look around the room, and noticed her flashlight's plastic casing was cracked, but still functioning. She looked around, and for a moment, she stilled.

Spanning the walls were intricate murals depicting more of the serpents. Only, now that she got a closer look at them, Riley could see the shape and detail of the monsters that had been chasing after them. Her mind flashed them back to the entrance of the temple, where she'd seen the same murals, and she tapped Suraj on the shoulder and pointed.

"Suraj. Suraj, read. Translate." She said, gesturing to the writing.

Suraj looked at it, but when he understood, he paced over to the wall, and began to walk along, mumbling to himself in Nepalese. Riley followed behind him, watching as he traced his fingers over the strange mixture of hieroglyphs and alien laser-etching. _Maybe it'll give us the key to destroying them. Or fighting them. Or _something_._

"Many temple. This not only temple." Suraj said, speaking slowly to try and make himself understandable, "Temple have. . . have place. To do things. With serpents."

Riley nodded her head, not quite understanding, but she didn't care about the finer history of the place. Suraj continued. "Wind spirits come. Defeat serpents. Great honor."

"How did the wind spirits kill them?" Riley asked. When Suraj looked at her, confused, Riley mimed stabbing herself in the chest. "Kill. Destroy. Defeat serpents. How?"

"Ah. I read." Suraj said, running his hands over the wall again. He kept walking further and further into the room, and Riley followed suit, keeping close behind him as he murmured, whispering and translating to himself.

"Suraj?" Riley prompted, swearing she heard some kind of rustling behind them, "Hurry."

"Temple. . . Wind spirits use hands. Bare hands. And sticks."

They hit a juncture in the wall, and Suraj turned. . . And they ran across an altar. For a moment, Riley stared at it, again lost at the grandeur and downright _alien _presentation. But there, she could see the mural of one of the wind spirits, proudly holding some kind of staff. . . Which was on the altar. Metal, beautiful, and shining, it gleamed under their flashlights.

"Sticks." Riley said, looking at the mural. "Spears."

She reached forward, fingers brushing over the cold metal, and on the surface, she could see what looked like blood, dull, forest-green speckles that ran over the sharp points. Her fingers itched to hold it, to reach around and grab it. . . but something dripped onto her hand. Riley rolled her hand over, and another drop of wet goo splashed onto her hand. She rolled her fingers in it, looking at how sticky and _warm_. . . She froze.

Slowly, achingly slowly, she titled her head back, and there, above her, one of the serpents laid, mouth pulled back into a snarl. A tail was at the apex of its curl, and without waiting, it speared down, and Riley tensed, seeing the end, knowing it was over- but hands shoved her to the side, and she heard a choked, strangled cry of pain. Next to her, Suraj stiffened, before the tail lifted him off the floor, and blood gushed out of the hole in his shoulder, off the tip of the tail. It brought him up close to the creature, and quicker than she could blink, it wrapped itself around Suraj and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. the same hole they'd come from.

She was alone.

Riley started shaking as she looked down, seeing the blood on her jacket, her hands. . . _Suraj is gone. Suraj is _gone_. Just like Daddy. He pushed me out of the way._

She thought. . . Riley thought that she was going to fall down. She was going to give in.

But no.

Pure, unadulterated _rage _poured into her. Everything was going fucking insane today. The digsite, her father, now Suraj. . .

No. _No_. She was tired of being afraid.

Her fear dissipated, and fury replaced it. If she was going to die, she was going to fucking kill as many of them as she could. Before she'd even known she'd done it, Riley snatched the spear off of the altar, and turned, marching out of the room. The hallway leading to it was as identical to all the rest of the pyramid, but she could hear them, right down the hallway. And a second later, they were there with her. Two of them.

Suraj's blood burned her through her jacket, reminding her of just _who _these fuckers had killed.

The creatures charged her, thinking she was standing still out of fear, out of stupidity. But Riley was done being afraid. She wanted _revenge_. Letting her anger spur her movements, Riley ran forward herself, the spear held tightly in her hands. In a blink, the first of the creatures was there, right on top of her, and Riley swung the spear- not quickly enough, however. A tail smashed into her rib cage, sending her flying, and crashing into the wall.

Riley wheezed, but with adrenaline in her veins, she forced herself to get up, to swing the spear again.

And it connected. The creature hadn't been expecting that. It connected with its head, slicing deep into its skull, and it screeched in pain. Riley pressed her assault, shifting her grip on the spear - and against her will, it changed, the blades sliding out and extending, becoming heavier and deadlier. Riley nearly lost her grip on the weapon, and through some divine act of providence, she kept her hold on it, and she swung a second time - this time embedding it into the creature's skull.

Rather anticlimactically, it sighed, twitched, and fell to the ground, dead.

It did, however, teach her a critical, valuable lesson about the serpents - their blood burned. As it slumped over, searing hot, volcanic acid dripped onto her stomach and legs, hissing and bubbling on her skin. Riley staggered backward, releasing the spear, fingers scraping at her body - and her hands burned as the blood spread onto her skin. She heard another cry, and she jerked her head up, her blood ran cold as she saw the second serpent racing to her, a black blur in the temple.

_I got one, _she thought, _I almost did it. There isn't enough time for me to grab the spear. I'm sorry, Daddy. I tried._

Still, she tried to reach the spear, to jerk it out of the creature, but it was in the air when she wrapped her hand around the hilt of it - and the monster literally exploded.

Riley stood still as she watched it tear apart in midair, bits and pieces of its blood flinging onto her, burning her a second time, and she stood there, her hand wrapped around the hilt of her spear, breathing harshly, silence ringing in her ears.

"What the fuck." She whispered.

A huge, hulking. . . Hulking _thing _approached, standing easily seven feet tall, dark, imposing, and _alien_. Riley stood there, her hand still wrapped around the hilt of the spear, her body still burning as the alien's blood seared into her skin. And, just as anticlimactically, the rage that had fueled her left, abandoning her as quickly as it had come. It loomed over her, and she stared up at it stupidly, her body feeling numb. She'd reached the end of her limit, she knew. And there was no way that she could fight against this thing. If it wanted to kill her, she would let it.

There came a pop, a hiss, and a crackle, and she heard her own voice, whisper-light and distorted. "_What the fuck_."

Her mouth moved, but no words came out, and she looked up, wondering why it hadn't killed her yet, why it was just staring at her-

Lights illuminated the tunnel, blinding Riley, and she flinched back, jerking a wounded hand up to shield her eyes.

"Hostile sighted!"

"Engage!"

Guns chattered, hurting her ears, and Riley jumped in fright, scrambling behind the alien, looking for an escape route - but a sharp pain bit into her leg, and she went down. Riley cried out in pain, nursing her wounded leg, but her voice died in her throat as a bullet hit the bricks right next to her head, nearly slamming into her brain. Several more hot bites punctured her skin, and as adrenaline flooded her system again, she realized she'd been shot. Riley laid there, curled up on herself, and she heard a furious, menacing growl - which just as quickly turned into a choked whine of pain as more bullet sounded.

Riley cried out as the huge, hulking creature leaned over her, catching himself as he fell, and more blood sloshed on her. Her wounds stung as _more _blood fell in them, and Riley jerked underneath it, crying out in pain - and she choked when it landed in her mouth. She spit it out, but above her, the creature bled, its wounds large and severe. Riley kept coughing on its blood, trying not to throw up as the sharp, chemical-tasting liquid slid down her throat despite her best attempts.

"Put it down!"

A gun cracked against the side of the creature's head, and somehow, the soldier who had done it rolled the creature off of her.

Riley didn't move. She just laid there, suffering, in pain, a hot wetness spreading under her leg at an alarming rate. _Blood_, she thought_, we're all bleeding today_. Her head spun, and blackness gathered at the corners of her vision. Against her will, the world began to grow fuzzy and faint, and as consciousness ebbed away from her, she felt tears sting her eyes again at the thought of her father and Suraj.

_I tried_, she thought, slipping away_, I tried so hard, Daddy. . . _

* * *

><p>Riley came awake slowly, as she had so many times before, but was satisfied to just lay in the middle of the Room.<p>

_The end. When I fall asleep, are you going to have me dream about the beginning again?_ She thought, groggily.

But no. For the first time, the alien took her by surprise. Riley saw the pictures in her head as it somehow _reached in_, and played them over like a highlight reel, only focusing on certain sections. The soldiers, her diving into the cave, the moment she met her father, and then farther. When she and Suraj had landed in the cave, the fury, her grabbing the spear, stabbing into the serpent. . . He repeated that part.

Only, this time, she wasn't in her body.

Riley gasped as she left her mind, and she recoiled as she was thrust into another.

It was different. Too different. She struggled, trying to find some sense of normalcy, of belonging, but he squished that, containing her to a small space. Finally, Riley just remained still, breathing heavily (though, how one could do that in a mind, she'd never know), and finally, the alien moved again, showing her the reel.

Only through his eyes.

_He was alone, stalking through the temple, searching the walls, looking at the strange, glowing, primitive sticks of light on the ground - and he hard a distinctly female cry. Knowing that his prey had been sighted, he moved, all athletic grace and muscle, booking it to the sound of the Ooman scream. They weren't that far away, he'd been tracking them for some time. He raced to the noise, holding his glaive in his hand, and when he hit the hallway bearing the signature of the kiande amedha*** - and he let it fly. His glaive tore it apart, and a small, started squeak sounded in the hallway._

_He changed his scanner, shifting to normal vision, and there, standing at the corpse of the second kiande amedha, was the Ooman. She had her hand wrapped around the weapon of the Ancient this temple had been dedicated to. A rash of indignation wove through him as he took in the sight - how dare a Ooman think she had the right to lay hands on a Yautja weapon?_

_But the corpse of his prey, however. . . A quick glance at her body revealed telltale signs of a struggle._

_She'd made this kill._

Riley felt disoriented as she saw another flash, and she watched as the soldiers stormed the hallway, felt his pain as bullets tore open his skin. His blood, a beautiful, bright neon green, dripped down. He lost his balance and fell, just barely managing to catch himself to avoid crushing the Ooman. She cowered underneath him, alien and foreign, and he watched in vague fascination as his blood sloshed onto her, hitting her face, her body - but something crashed into his temple, and his visual relays went dark as consciousness left him.

_I know all of this_, Riley thought, _I lived it._

_Not all_, he replied, _Not all, Ooman._

And then, just like a movie, the scene played again.

_He was alive, but wounded. They had given him something, injected him with some sort of drug that flooded into his body and weighed him down, making him useless. Still, he'd managed to break the neck of one foolish Ooman, and break the arm of another before they drugged him a second time. It took three of them to heave him out of the temple, but only one carried the Ooman girl, who laid limp, her skin a freakish pasty white as her too-red blood dripped everywhere._

_She'd looked as though she'd wanted to take the ki'cti-pa of the Ancient and stab him with it, too, but she hadn't._

_Fear. She'd reeked of it. But so had fury._

_The soldiers shouted things as they dragged him out, and he managed a growl as they forced him to his knees. They didn't know he could understand them, so he listened, taking advantage of their arrogance._

_"Subject captured," One said, saluting to his Ooman master, "Orders, sir?"_

_"Cleanup. Exterminate those who are alive." The Ooman master said, his hands tucked neatly behind his back._

_He watched as one of the Ooman men battled his way out of the ranks, fighting past the soldiers, shouting a name, trying to rush forward. One of the soldiers hit him, and he watched as his nose began to bleed, more of that disgusting red blood leaking from his face._

_"Riley! RILEY!"_

_"Sir?" One of the Ooman slaves asked, looking to his master for guidance._

_He knew this Ooman one well. A leader, a doctor, a scientist. He'd watched his primitive Ooman plane fly in, how he'd initiated the "quarantine." An easy way to shepherd the Ooman masses who were more than pleased to go to their deaths like sheep. A few remained alive - the near-dead Ooman girl for one. As he looked at the Ooman man who was trying to rebel, he noticed several striking similarities between them._

_Spawn, he guessed. The Ooman man's spawn._

_"Take the Yautja and the girl into custody. Deliver them to Weyland-Yutani services. I'll take care of this." The Ooman man said._

_Soldiers flooded around him, hoisting him up onto an ancient litter, and he tried to fight, but the drugs were too strong. The half-dead Ooman girl was given the same treatment, a litter of her own, but he didn't pay much attention to her, however. Instead, he watched as the Ooman master approached the distraught spawn-creator, and calmly pulled out a gun._

_"Thank you for serving Weyland-Yutani Corp, Dr. Landon. Rest assured, your daughter will be well provided for"_

_And he fired._

_The Ooman's body went limp, hitting the ground, a uniform hole cut into his head._

_"Such a waste of talent," The Ooman master said, "We could have used you, Dr. Landon. It's a good thing you have a child to carry on your legacy. We saved you from the Xenomorphs. . . and you died up here. What a way to go."_

And then he deposited her back into her body.

Riley's eyes were wide, and her fingers gripped the floor as she breathed. She tried to concentrate on just breathing, because she felt as though she'd been punched. She thought. . . She thought her father had died at the hands of the serpents.

But no.

He'd been shot, like he'd been nothing more than a stray dog.

And the voice. . . The man who'd shot him. . .

_"How are you feeling today?"_

The man behind the glass. . .

Her father hadn't died at the hands of some animal.

He'd been shot and killed.

Black, dark rage, so hot and thick it felt like poison in her veins, slowly trudged through her.

_I'm going to fucking kill him. I'll murder him. I'm going to tear his throat _out.

In the back of her mind, she felt him laugh, equally as dark.

_And this was the Ooman worthy of wielding the ki'cti-pa._

Riley seethed, fingers curling into the ground.

She'd tear his throat out.

With her _bare _hands.

* * *

><p>m-di yin'tekai! == No honor. <em><br>_

kiande amedha == Hard Meat / Xenomorph

chakt-ra == glaive / Hunter's disc.

ki'cti-pa == Combistick/spear.


End file.
